


I Don’t Want to Talk About it Anymore

by Bees_and_Wasps



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Aquariums, At Least It's Heavily Hinted, Flash is an Asshole, It's another adoptive Tony fic, Mental Health Issues, Not Canon Compliant, One Shot, Peter Parker Really Likes Sharks, Peter Parker has ADHD, Rejection Sensitive Disorder, Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, Sad Peter Parker, Sharks, So Much Self Projection, Spiny Dogfish Sharks, Tony Only Ever Refers to Peter Using Dumb Son-Like Nicknames, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Why?, anyway, because why not, but we been knew, by that i mean, like it's ridiculous, nothing too bad though, rsd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-19 02:49:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19347982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bees_and_Wasps/pseuds/Bees_and_Wasps
Summary: Peter had found himself utterly fascinated by sea life and the creatures with it. More specifically, the sharks. Even more specifically, the spiny dogfish. Now, on a field trip for school, he finds himself surrounded by what he loves and unable to stop himself from bouncing off the walls with excitement.That excitement, however, didn't last long.





	I Don’t Want to Talk About it Anymore

At first it was the ocean. 

A vast expanse of shimmering blue water that got darker and more surreal the further you went. An endless sea, literally, of strange creatures and habitats. All of which that Peter just naturally gravitated towards, finding interest in the most bizarre subjects. Mostly the sharks, they were the coolest. What with them being one of the longest living species on Earth, roughly dating around 400 million years and with evolutionary altercations that both amaze and confuse everyone alike. They had an abundance of teeth, producing as much as 30,00 a year, making them one of the most efficient and fierce predators of this Earth all while causing damage to few humans, vending machines allegedly proving to be more life threatening than that of a shark, and they were just gorgeous animals. Especially spiny dogfish sharks. 

They were small, sleek creatures that nearly glowed a luminescent purple under the sky blue waves with white specks dotted along their backs that reflected a pearly white. When Peter first saw them in person- at a school field trip visiting a famous aquarium in Manhattan near the end of his sophomore year- he was sure they were,  
“...more like ocean angels rather than an actual sharks,” he said to MJ while they spent their time observing the small pool. 

There was an exhibit with an open basin to let people reach in and pet the small dogfish that swam by. They were smooth, like wet clay. Nearly freaked Peter out at first, but when one became an array of dogfish sharks swarming around his hand, wanting to be pet, he found himself instantaneously attached. He got used to the feeling once more and more swam by, it began to feel like they were actual pets. As though they were just like any other small dog, loving and affectionate. Just another reason to love the weird wonders of the ocean and the animals within it. 

“Yeah, I mean… I guess I see what you mean?” MJ responded, flicking her hand back out of the pool. “But also I don’t at all see what you mean.”  
“You’re gonna scare them you know.” Peter said, already losing some of his friends as they scurried away from the sudden jerk of the water.  
“Yeah well besides from being pretty, they also weird as hell.” She said, her face growing a little red and her hand noticeably shaking. “It’s a little scary,” her voice was barely audible, but Peter heard.  
“Weird? Maybe. Scary? No. Here-” Peter, without much thought, slowly raised his hand out of the basin and reached for MJ's hand, encasing his palm over the back of her hand as he directed her towards the water.  
“Ugh, your hand is all wet and covered in shark goo.”  
“There's no such thing as shark goo.” He rolled his eyes, slightly chuckling at her comment. “They’re not gonna hurt you, they don’t want to.” He comforted, trying his best to still her hand as one of the smaller ones glided past their fingertips. A happy buzz flitting through the pool. 

MJ sucked in her breath at contact, but didn’t budge. She allowed Peter’s hand to help ground her as more and more sharks reluctantly floated by.  
“See? They’re a little like dogs. I mean… Well, they are kinda, it’s in their name.”  
“What?”  
“Yeah, spiny dogfish sharks.” Peter said, smiling to himself. Happy that he was finally in the one place that had been surrounded by what he found fascinating.  
“Your weird Parker,” MJ smirked, not nearly reaching levels of dumb grinning like Peter, but it was a smile nonetheless. “But… They are pretty beautiful.”  
“Aren’t they?” It was kind of ridiculous how much Peter’s jaw hurt from all the smiles. 

It wasn’t until Peter had found himself stuck in a spiral of endless rambling did everything suddenly come to a screeching halt. While he and MJ idly pet passing sharks, MJ now calm enough to do it on her own, Peter had started going on a rant about different facts and history. He barely noticed he was rambling until he was pulled back.  
“In the pacific they can live up to 80 years! Oh, and-”  
“Jesus Penis Parker, calm down! God, your more obnoxious in public than in school.” Flash passed by, laughing to himself and to a few other onlooking students. “I think MJ’s gettin’ a little tired of your constant talking.” 

Peter felt his face grow hot enough until it felt like spikes were continually poking at his face, crawling down to his neck and to the pads of his fingertips. His stomach felt so twisted and punched he wasn’t sure how he was going to eat for the rest of the day. Everything felt smaller, like four walls had enclosed around his shoulders. Blocking his sight from everything he was so excited to see before. 

"Hey, don't worry about it Peter. He's just being a dick, I'm not tir-"  
"It's okay."

He didn’t say one thing about the ocean the rest of the day. 

Then it was home. 

All he wanted to do was go home. Which, of course, meant he couldn’t actually go home.

“Mr. Stark?” Peter had shuffled his way out of the school, expecting to take his normal walk back home, but instead having come face to face with a waiting Tony Stark, leaning mindlessly on one of his overtly complex cars that probably costs more than the entirety of the school campus.  
“Hey Parker,” Tony had greeted, acting as though this was all was completely normal. Peter could hear the murmurs of awe-struck students gawking behind him.  
"Is that Iron Man?"  
"Wait, didn't Peter say he had an internship?" 

"That was real?"

“Aunt May called in, says she has to work overtime, so here I am instead.” He explained, as if that fixed everything.  
“Um, right…” Peter shifted the weight of his feet. “Guessing this is about the 'internship'?”  
“You guessed it. C’mon shortstop, we don’t have all day.” Tony pushed himself upright and unlocked his car. Shortstop? Really? The doors lifted upwards to reveal an all too luxurious interior, waiting for Peter to sit inside. He could feel the wave of everyone's gasps on his neck. Today has already been exhausting, but this was too much. 

“Okay, so here’s the thing,” Tony had began as soon as Peter climbed in and shut the door. “There’s no actual internship thing happening, Happy just wanted to surprise your Aunt May with a nice dinner date today and I promised that I’d take care of you for the time being until they’re done having their little romantic-”  
“I got it Mr. Stark.” Peter cut him off before he could finish. The prospect of May and Happy together still weirded Peter out, it was a change he didn’t expect to happen. It was a change he doesn't think he’ll ever really get used to. 

The car was smooth and quiet, all except for the small humming of the engine, as they remained practically stiff still throughout the ride. It felt lifeless almost, not that Peter was going to start that conversation with Stark. Or any conversation at all. Instead he just rested his head against the window, watching Queens pass by him. Trying to catch some sense of movement.  
“Heard your school took a trip to the aquarium in Manhattan today.” Tony started, still acting as though he was interested. Had been ever since Peter started talking, even during small little meet-ups about his ever progressing suit, he would talk ceaselessly about the ocean. He didn’t have to act anymore, Peter was done.  
“Mmhm.”  
“I think I saw your bus pass by the tower today there.”  
“Probably.”  
“How was it?”  
“It was okay.”  
“Okay? Weren’t you dying to see that place before? I thought you were into all the weird sea life and stuff.”  
“Uh, not really, I don’t- I don’t think I’m really interested in that kind of stuff anymore.”  
“That was sudden, when Happy called May earlier today all she had to say was how happy you seemed to be going. Couldn’t stop talking about you and this field trip of yours for a solid fifteen minutes.” Tony smirked, Peter felt his ears go hot.  
“Yeah, well, things change.” Peter sunk further in his seat, not wanting to think about the aquarium anymore, let alone the ocean.  
“That’s too bad, you didn’t see one thing you liked there?” Tony asked, and of course Peter was brought back to the sharks. To the basin, back to MJ, her listening smile, back to Flash, and his mocking smile.  
“No, not really. I don’t really want to talk about it, Mr. Stark, if that’s okay.”  
“Oh, uh, yeah. Yeah that’s fine kid.” 

The quiet was suffocating. Lifeless and suffocating. 

Peter had to sit quietly a lot today. What with the bus drive there being nearly two hours long, and had he realized that it would all be for nothing in the first place maybe he wouldn’t have to be whist at all. His mind still felt stagnant, as though his once previously racing thoughts withered to static. It had felt like that all day, motionless and numb with pointless fuzz filling his ears. No longer bouncing off the walls with absolute fascination, but now inert. He felt paralyzed, and the rest of the hour long drive to the tower did not help. 

“Did… Did something happen today, Parker?” Stark had asked out of nowhere. Pulling Peter from whatever fixation he was stuck on.  
“No? Nothing happened.”  
“It’s just, you seem so… not yourself all of a sudden.”  
“What do you mean?”  
“I dunno," he shrugged, uncertain with his words. "Normally you’d be talking my ear off about the spiny dogfish shark or something.”  
“Oh…”  
“Not that I don’t mind it! I actually really like hearing about your strange obsession about whatever it is that lies within the deep depths of the ocean-”  
“Dogfish sharks swim from the surface.”  
“See? You’d normally go on to tell me stuff like that, but your just… quiet all of a sudden. What’s the matter?”  
“Nothing, nothing’s wrong. I just… Don’t really like talking about it anymore.”  
“Just today? C’mon kid, it took you nearly three months before you stopped talking about the weird lore to Star Wars, the ocean only took you three weeks?” Three months? Had he really been talking about Star Wars for that long? 

Just like that, Peter had found himself teetering over the edge with a question he dreaded. A heavy weight in his chest pushed him forward to ask it, get it out of the way and clear his doubts, but the hot shame at the back of his neck pulled him back. Thinking maybe it was best to leave it alone, that’s what everyone wanted. 

“Do… Uh-” Peter swallowed down the weird lump in his throat, the weight growing.  
“Hm?”  
“Do I normally go on annoying rants about stuff?” He found himself falling, unable to pull himself back up.  
“Huh? Annoying rants?”  
“Never mind, it’s stupid, forget I said anything-”  
“Do you think you’re annoying Peter?” 

His gut could only handle so much punches, soon he’d have no choice but to let everything spill out.  
“Um, well I mean, doesn’t it sort of bother you? That I’m always talking, always moving around from one thing to another.”  
“You’re spider-man, moving from one spot to another is sort of your thing.”  
“No, I mean like… Aren’t you tired?”  
“Tired of what?”  
“Of… me.” 

The humming stopped. Along with everything else outside, even the wind had caught on to the little game the universe was seemingly playing on Peter and stopped as well. It was more suffocating, more lifeless. The weight in his chest felt more like concrete in his stomach.  
“Parker, I’m going to say this once and once only,” Tony looked stern, genuine in his words with a conviction that made Peter hold his breath. “Not once will I ever find you annoying, I will never get tired and throw you out of your suit, okay?” 

The concrete held, holding him down until he was weary of sitting upright. What he wouldn’t give to fall forward and fall asleep right now. Forget all of this and leave it to waste away.  
“Right,” was the only word he could think of. His eye’s ached as his vision grew watery.  
“I like the weird things you talk about, no matter how weird they are. That’s why you’re so smart in the first place, cause you don’t stop yourself from learning about the things you like.”

At this point, the heat on his skin stung and the pain in his eyes was unbearable. 

“You’ve got a heart like no other kid, so why apologize for it?”

He couldn't stop the tear in his left eye from spilling, he couldn’t stop the one on the right soon after. 

“Why do you think anyone would be bothered?”  
“I just… I dunno.”  
“Something happened, at the aquarium-”  
“No-”  
“Yes, don’t lie to me Parker, what happened?”

Everything then started to go numb. The weight in his stomach, the heat on his skin, the pain in his eyes, everything. Mute, until all he could afford to do was see. 

“I… I got really excited seeing the sharks and… I let that excitement get the better of me I guess and I couldn’t stop talking,” Peter paused. Taking a moment to see Tony's sunken eyes, his stern stare now lifted into an empathic focus. He was listening completely, he wasn’t pushing him away or asking him to stay quiet. He could speak all he wanted, Tony was allowing him that comfort he wanted before, but words of the vulnerable worked best when simplified. “Someone told me to be quiet, and it just… It put me in a weird mood.”  
“Got it,” Tony nodded. “Someone made you feel like you were annoying?”  
“Like… Like I messed everything up.” Peter hadn’t recognized before, but his face felt hot. Not of shame though, but from the tears that continued to roll down, relieving the ache behind his eyes. The concrete dissolved from his stomach and his skin no longer felt like it was being stung. 

They were quiet for a while, Peter quickly wiping away the tears and collecting himself while Tony seemed worlds away. His eyes darting from one side to the other, he’s always been more of a visual thinker, but Peter couldn’t exactly tell what was going through his mind. 

“I have an idea.”

\--

"What? No, no way Mr. Stark."  
"Yep, c'mon, I'll pay for food and everything." Tony had offered, not giving Peter any time to refuse before hopping out of his car and towards the Aquarium entryway.  
"No, I don't want to go back." Peter had stepped out, but didn't budge any further. Tony, having been a few steps ahead, turned back on his heel. Looking at Peter with concern.  
"Why?"

Of all questions to catch Peter entirely off guard, he was certainly not expecting that.  
"I... I just... I don't want to remember it, I'll just... mess everything up again."  
"Mess up how?"  
"I'll annoy you-"  
"Can never be annoying to me, remember?" Tony argued and Peter was speechless. "Just five minutes, that's all, if you still don't like it, we can go back."

Peter considered, his eyes darting between Tony and the building behind him.  
"C'mon, let's go."  
"...Fine." 

\--

Peter found himself back over the edge of the basin, admiring the graceful pool of dogfish sharks.  
"So these are the ones you like so much?"  
"Yeah," Peter answered, reluctantly dipping his hand back into the water.  
"Tell me about them." Tony sat beside him, watching as a shark had swam against Peter's hand. They were still just as affectionate and caring as before. Peter's jaw hurt as he found himself grinning again.

All Peter did was talk endlessly for the rest of the day, pushing past the static, and Tony listened. Allowed him the comfort to be unapologetically thrilled. 

It was worth the two hour drive.

**Author's Note:**

> In case your wondering, Happy and May had a wonderful time together. 
> 
> I have a tumblr where I reblog pretty things like sharks, and that is a promise.  
> https://spearmint-tea-and-hella-bees.tumblr.com/


End file.
